Educational App Development: Important Features and Useful Tips

Mobile applications play an important role in education, and the niche is sufficiently promising to attract the attention of many developers from all over the world.

Educational mobile applications give modern students one important and very valuable advantage: the opportunity to study at any time and at any place that is convenient.

Both ordinary people and university members actively use new technological inventions. Everything is heading towards the creation of a personalized environment that would give the opportunity for students to study from anywhere.

If you are going to create an educational application, you can be congratulated for your good choice! We hope that our tips will help you to create a really successful product.

What to Do Before You Start to Develop an Educational App

Before starting to build an educational app, you need to answer some questions and gather enough information to properly understand what you are going to create, for whom, and with the orientation to which platform.

Audience geography. The popularity of a particular technological product depends on many factors, including geographical ones. Statistics show that the United States is the most competitive and profitable market for educational applications. The cost of education here is tens of billions of dollars.

Moreover, it’s worth paying attention to the markets of China and Latin America, especially Brazil. According to Statista.com, the audience of mobile users in Latin America is more than 400 million people. Impressive, isn’t it?

Also, pay attention to the Scandinavian countries. In the educational sphere, these geographic regions are the most promising.

Adults or children? This question is much more important than choosing a niche, since the approaches to development may wildly differ. We already wrote about the features of creating applications for children, and if this topic is relevant for you, we recommend that you read it.

Target platform. The decision about which platform to use depends on a number of factors: which OS the target audience uses, and how much time and money developers have. To get more information on the differences in creating native and cross-platform apps, read our article on the subject. Moreover, we recommend you to get acquainted with our material on choosing a platform for creating applications (iOS or Android).

The points listed above are important at the stage of planning the strategy for the project, when it is necessary to think about the main steps for the future, to estimate the possible costs of time and money, as well as the need to outsource some tasks.

The 7 Different Types of Educational Apps

Despite the presence of similar features, such applications can be divided into several types, depending on the objectives and key features.

• applications for learning languages;
• training platforms and courses;
• educational applications for children;
• educational applications for adults;
• programs for testing and assessing the level of knowledge;
• reference applications (dictionaries, encyclopedias);
• specialized educational programs (for example, for driving instruction).

Having clearly defined which type your application belongs to, you will be able to make a clearer strategy for its creation.

Important Facilities for Educational App Development

The feature set depends on the type of application and the tasks that it must solve. Some of them are mandatory from the start, and some can be gradually added over time.

You can implement the following functional capabilities (features) in your application:

• Interactive exercises for material revision;
• Audio and video materials with explanations for lessons and exercises;
• Categories for lessons on different topics;
• A pre-installed dictionary with illustrations and voice pronunciation;
• Statistics showing the progress and dynamics of learning;
• Tests after passing each particular topic;
• Access to methodical and educational materials online and the opportunity to download them to the device;
• Record of achievements;
• Integration with social networks;
• Video and audio content.

The list can be continued because, unlike some other niches, the field of education is very promising for further development.

Tips for Developing an Educational App

Each product is unique in its own way and has its own development path. But there are a number of general tips that are versatile and can be useful to many of you in your work.

1. Turn “big knowledge” into little chunks. This is a problem that is relevant almost to any topic when it comes to presenting information. People want to get the information they need, but they do not want to spend too much time on it. Therefore, it is necessary to systematize knowledge, highlight the most important, and present it in an easy-to-understand format.
2. Use gamification. Not only children, but adults as well can enjoy the learning process much more if it is more like a game or quest, rather than simply the usual tasks from the training course.
3. Split the big course into small parts. Many people do not have enough time for long classes, and they are much more willing to complete short-term tasks. Divide the large fragments into smaller steps so that users can pass them step by step.
4. Implement multimedia content. An application in which the text is accompanied by images, audio content and videos is understood much better than applications without multimedia content. Short and instructive videos help users to better understand the material and cause an emotional response from users.

If we talk about the monetization of educational applications, then we can consider such methods as:

• partnerships with certain educational institutions;
• a freemium model, in which the main functionality of the application is offered free of charge, and payment is performed for advanced options;
• profit from advertisements;
• a fee-based monthly subscription;
• the sale of physical or virtual goods.

In terms of the trends in this niche, the main trends do not differ from those which are relevant for the development of mobile applications in general.

To Sum Up

The world around us is changing, and the ways of studying are changing rapidly. The learning process now is very different to what it was like 10 years ago and, in many respects, this is due to advancements in technology.

Educational app development is on-trend. Currently, all types of edu-applications have the top hits in the App Store and are popular with hundreds of thousands of users. So, if you have ever thought about creating your own educational application, then the time is now.

And we are ready to help you to realize your ideas in a real product. Don’t waste time – get in touch!